To effectively treat patients, healthcare providers often require access to various kinds of patient information from various sources. Patient information that healthcare providers may need access to may include family illness information, physical examination information, medical diagnoses, laboratory data, x-ray reports, special studies, prescriptions, medications, therapies, consultation reports, and records from previous hospitalizations and clinic visits. Various computer systems have been developed to obtain and present patient information to healthcare providers. Unfortunately, a complaint often heard among healthcare providers utilizing these computer systems is that access to patient information can be time consuming and difficult.
Conventionally, health care providers are required to log on to a computer system via a desktop computer and navigate through one or more complex programs in order to access medical records stored within one or more data sources. Once a data source is accessed, the patient information contained therein typically requires some amount of collating and transcribing in order to provide the patient information into a usable format. Accordingly, healthcare providers are often required to spend a great deal of time locating and formatting patient information for use.
In addition, healthcare computer systems in healthcare facilities typically are not located near patients. For example, computer access to patient information typically is not available to a healthcare provider in a patient's room. As such, healthcare providers may not be able to access information about a patient as he/she is visiting with a patient.
Increasingly, healthcare providers are utilizing handheld/wireless devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) to perform a variety of computing and communication functions, including sending and retrieving e-mail, Web browsing, and data-sharing applications over the Internet, intranet and/or corporate networks. Handheld device operating systems typically utilize graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that allow users to perform various functions. For example, on a Palm® OS device, a user interacts with graphical representations (e.g., application icons) and controls (e.g., buttons, scroll bars, etc.) referred to herein as GUI controls. These GUI controls often perform various functions in response to physical touching by a user (e.g., touching or tapping via a finger or stylus). Unfortunately, medical record data is typically not accessible via handheld devices. Moreover, patient information is conventionally maintained in one or more formats that is not conducive to display via a handheld device.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved, less time-consuming ways of allowing healthcare providers to access patient information from various sources, and from various locations. In addition, there is a need for improved ways of presenting patient information to healthcare providers via various handheld devices.